EECREATIYE SCIENCE. 



201 



front. It might be tliought, therefore, that 

 hail should fall before any rain, and this 

 would be the case were it not that the first 

 edge of the cloud had to meet a warmer cur- 



Jiorizon. 



Jlaiif 



Fig. 4.— Thunder-cloud. 



rent, causing the hail to melt. If a thunder- 

 storm (where the zone of hail passes ver- 

 tically over a place) be attentively watched, 

 it will be seen that rain falls first, followed 

 by half-melted hail, after which the hail- 



stones become larger and harder until a 

 maximum is reached, after which they as 

 rapidly decrease in size and hardness, and at 

 last are succeeded by rain. The hail-storm 

 is a compact mass at the front of the cloud ; 

 it cannot be a circular belt around it, other- 

 wise, before the termination of the storm, 

 another hail-shower would occur; and this 

 seems never to be the case. 



However, we have said enough, intro- 

 ductorily, to convince all thinking men that 

 a wide field of investigation is open before 

 them, which, by careful culture, is capable of 

 yielding a plentiful rich harvest of truth. 

 We, therefore, propose to take up each 

 branch of the subject, and describe how ob- 

 servations may be best made, which instru- 

 ments it is most desirable to use, and what 

 precautions are necessary, in order to render 

 the records useful to science and mankind. 



E, J. Lowe. 

 Heeston Observatory, 



A PLAYTHING OF THE TIDES. 



A PLiYTHiNa of the tides— a plaything of 

 the waters ! Truly so. A tennis-ball of 

 flint, which the never-sleeping waves have 

 bandied to and fro for many a long series of 

 years. But, seriously, what is it ? We have 

 already said that it is a ball of flint ; but, to 

 speak more correctly, a ball it was before 

 chance threw it into our hands, by the agency 

 of which its exterior integrity became sadly, 

 yet happily damaged. 



Forgetting its antecedent condition as a 

 plaything, driven onwards and backwards, 

 and rolled round and round by many a flow 

 and many an ebb, let us place it before 

 our readers. We can only do so by de- 

 lineation. 



Who, then, we would ask, looking with a 

 hasty glance at our "facsimile,'^ and for the 



moment forgetting all about its silicious com- 

 position, but would say — " This is a petrified 

 fruit, surely ? Why, there are the plain indi- 

 cations of a fruit- stalk, from which elevated 

 fibres extend over its rotund surface. But 

 what a strange fruit, or perhaps kernel ; how 

 reticulately rugose its surface ; and what are 

 we to say to its apple-like investment, and 

 the cavity within which the kernel is lodged, 

 adherent by the fruit-stalk only ? " 



Now, to speak the truth, some such mo- 

 mentary ideaflitted across our own mind as the 

 kernel was revealed by a smart blow, striking 

 ofi" a portion of the thick investment. It was 

 but momentary, and we smiled at our want 

 of reflection ; yet there was some excuse for 

 our precipitancy. 



One summer's day, we were sauntering 



